Friends and Family!
You guys are the greatest! Mom, Dad and Payt, thanks a ton for the emails!! Dad, I miss the trips to Home Depot like crazy!! haha Mom, now I’m mad because I know everything on your quiz but one of them! hahaha My favorite part (of Sweet Baby James) to sing was already written in! You’re the best!! We are totally taking a road trip when I get home and we can jam out to some James Taylor! Dad you always say that you hope your letters make sense but you shouldn’t stress it! I love your letters! They are so good and they always get me re-fired up! You’re the best!! Man it sounds like everybody is getting mission calls! It’s weird to think that Payt’s group of kids is next!! That scares me a ton!! It’s so weird that school is ending!! My mission still just feels like a dream that I haven’t woke up from yet!! It’s amazing how fast the past year has gone! Flyfishing and missionary work can really mow a year over fast!
So as for transfers, me and Elder Platt are staying! It’s the first comp that I will stay with for 2 transfers. It was a let down because change is exciting, but at the same time it’s great because so much good stuff is happening here and Elder Platt and I really get along! He’s a goof, but a lot of fun and we both love working, so it will be great!!
I need some advise though. If you look at a map of Selkirk, we are clear down on Oliver Street. We have tracted everything above it, and we only have a few streets we haven’t tracted! We are teaching a ton now but we still have time that we need to find new people and we are running out of places to go! Any ideas? I don’t know if I will have the faith to start at the top again!
This week has been crazy though! Last Saturday we sheet rocked a member’s ceiling. Then this week we helped Ben plant a huge garden! It was a ton of fun and it reminded me of home, ALOT! I wish I would have spent more time in the garden with you Mom!! In a couple years you can count on me, for sure! We set two new dates this week too!!! Ben set a date for Sept. 10th. He’s a great guy! This week we helped him with the garden and on P-day he threw a barbeque for us! It was really fun and really good! We have to take on Word of Wisdom this week though so hopefully all goes well!!
We also set a date with Kimberly!! She is great and she and her four kids all made it to church this week!! Ben, Kimberly and kids, Karl, and Velma all made it to church! Karl’s date is Aug 7th, but he is ready now! We have taught him everything and we are going to try and push his date up even more this week!! Velma’s date was for the 5th but she is really struggling with Word of Wisdom problems, so we are gonna have to move it back this week. But hopefully she can figure things out and all will go well!
Chris has been taught everything and he is living everything but the Sabbath Day! He is so close if he can just get work off and start coming to church!!
Things are going great!! I am so glad I got sent to Canada! Because I hate wearing church clothes in the heat!! I pray for rain or snow a lot! I’m wet no matter what! I just prefer that it isn’t due to my sweat! haha Oh, and the mosquitoes are coming out and they don’t sell 100% Deet here! Could you get me a couple of those small bottles of it from Jimmy’s and mail it to me? That stuff works so much better the the bug spray! Don’t send it if we are gonna get in trouble for it because it IS illegal in Canada, but if it looks possible rip off the tags and send some my way please!
Things here are really going good! It’s amazing how fast time is going!! It’s so scary! Six weeks used to seem like forever and now it feels like it’s not enough time to get anything done. Life is crazy! But I’ll be here another six weeks and mail and packages get to me faster her then when you send them to the Shaftesbury address! So you can send stuff here but only for the next 4 weeks.
Payton, I want more of an update on life! haha I love your emails and letters but gimmie some more details, please! That’s about it for this week though, we are in a hurry to get to our next appointment! Next week I might email Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on what’s going on so if you don’t here from me Tuesday don’t stress it!!
I love and miss you guys all so much!! You are the greatest! Dad I wanted to tell you that I’ve been taking your advise with taking stories and relating them to the gospel! You told me that last summer and I’ve thought about it a lot and I’ve really been trying to use it! It’s amazing how receptive people are to it! I carry around my family and fishing pictures everywhere and use stories in teaching, a lot! It’s way funny because my comp uses a lot of my stories and analogies to teach too! He will say "yah, Elder Smith loves Flyfishing and he always talks about......." haha It’s funny but what can I say, they are some pretty good fishing stories that really help people to understand the gospel!
I love you guys all so much! You are the greatest! Please keep being smart and safe and know that I love you a ton!!! Make it a great one and I’ll talk to you next week!!
Love Elder Smith!!
